Kept in the Dark

London: Isbister and Company, 1882. First Edition. Original cloth. Very good +. A Very Good + copy of Good Words for 1882 in the publisher's original green cloth with some modest wear to the front joint and to the binding's edges, the rear hinge is cracked open. The volume contains the FIRST APPEARANCE OF ANTHONY TROLLOPE'S NOVEL "KEPT IN THE DARK". (The tale contains an illustration by Millais.) Good Words was a monthly magazine first published in 1860 by Alexander Strahan and edited by Norman Macleod. Upon his death, his brother Donald Macleod became the periodical's Editor, and Isbister eventually took over Strahan's publishing enterprises. The magazine was directed at evangelical Protestant Christians as well as those known as "nonconformists" [Protestants who did not conform to the governance and usages of the established church (the Church of England) and who were consequently restricted from many spheres of public life such as public office, civil service careers, and degrees at Universities. [Notable nonconformists included Matthew Henry and Isaac Watts.] We have not ever seen another copy of this volume in its original cloth in over 40 years of diligently searching for Trollope rarities, while we have seen a rebound copy listed at the time this listing was created priced a touch above $1,100 (US). [We presume that, because it contains Anthony Trollope's novel "Kept in the Dark" in the installment format, much of which was published prior to the novel's full publication in its two-volume format (see NOTE below) and many copies may well have disappeared into both private and institutional collections. In Sadleir's ranking of scarcities -- categorized as A, B, C, and D, with A being the scarcest and D being the most frequently met with -- Sadleir ranks "Kept in the Dark" in its two-volume format (along with "Lotta Schmidt") as B7. He does not rank the scarcity of Trollope's novels originally published in installments (the form in which this novel began publication), but we are confident that this volume is more scarce that is the work in its two-volume format. Of the novel, Sadleir stated: "It is a study of morbid obsession.... Nevertheless it reads agreeably and ranks among the brief studies in individual psychology...as a book that must be read to be realized, and which, when read, will be found to offer genuine, if conventional, Trollope to such as seek him." A Very Good + copy of this SCARCE volume containing a multitude of works, INCLUDING THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF ANTHONY TROLLOPE'S KEPT IN THE DARK.

[NOTE: This volume contains works by numerous Authors and includes the first appearance of Anthony Trollope's "Kept in the Dark". The Novel was published in installments beginning with the May, 1882 edition of the magazine and ran without interruption through and including December, 1882. The full novel was published in two-volume book form in August or September of 1882.]